The wind passed gently over the Pacific Preserve, cooling off the passerby as they strolled peacefully along the trail. As they take in all of the scenery, they also make several stops along the way, taking stops at the signs posted along the path. After all, this is no ordinary trail, it’s a display of local Nebraskans’ writing.
As part of the IB Diploma Programme, students like senior Gabby Burns have to make a CAS project, short for creativity, activity, and service. For many students, this is an opportunity to help the community, but for Burns, it was more than that: it was an opportunity to show her passion for nature and poetry by setting up a poetry path.
“There are plaques along a trail at the Pacific Preserve that just have the poems of local professional poets, as well as middle school students, published on them so people can walk around and enjoy the poems while enjoying the beauty of nature,” Burns said.
Burns found the inspiration for her project in the summer before she started 8th grade. During this time, she had a road trip with her grandparents to Ripton, Vermont, where they introduced her to the Robert Frost poetry trail.
“I had never heard of a poetry trail in Nebraska Before, but I went there [Vermont], and it was incredible,” Burns said. “I got to see the words of one of my favorite poets and match it up with the nature that it was inspired by. And so it was such an impactful thing for me, and it should be a thing in Nebraska, too.”
Before she could set up her poetry path, Burns first needed to find a park that would be willing to have an installation. For this, she reached out to Writers Club sponsor Christine Carroll for help.
“I said, you’re going to need a Parks and Rec contact… And we were very fortunate in that there was a student volunteering with Mrs. Kegley last year, and his parent works at Parks and Rec. And so we got Gabby that name, and next thing I know, she’s pretty much made it all happen,” Carroll said.
To find poems for the installation, Burns reached out to both Kiewit Middle School and Millard North Middle School to host a poetry competition for the students; the winners would have their works put on the trail. This provided the students with a unique opportunity to have their writing displayed for people to see, which Burns hoped would help motivate them to continue writing, since she had some similar experiences with competitions when she was their age.
“When I was in eighth grade, that was probably when I first entered my poetry into anything. And that was so important to me to get the external validation to just encourage me to keep writing. And so I really hope that that’s what this was for them, too,” Burns said.
After the trail was fully set up, all that was left was to get the word out about it. Luckily for Burns, the park officials were willing to help.
“After meeting with Omaha Parks Department Marketing Manager, they have included it in their newsletter and posted it to social media. They also set up a competition where if someone tags Omaha Parks Department and the Poetry Path instagram in a picture with their favorite poem, they will be entered in a drawing to get ice skating passes,” Burns said.
The poetry trail encourages visitors to engage with both poetry and nature. The poems give people an opportunity to stop and enjoy not only the poem, but the surrounding scenery that the writing describes.
“[I enjoy] just going out to the trail and seeing people read. It has been so much fun just to watch them laugh and talk about it on their way to read the next poem. So that’s been really rewarding,” Burns said.
IB Coordinator Rhonda Betzold got to see Burns’s progress throughout this project, and also watched her personal growth as she made her vision a reality.
“Gabby was very interested in this project from the very beginning. She encountered roadblocks and at several times it looked like it might not be possible the way she envisioned it. I’m so proud of her perseverance and passion for this project,” Betzold said.
The installation is currently planned to be up for about a year, at the Pacific Preserve. There are seven featured poems along the half-mile trail, which are themed around nature, a theme that Burns chose to show how the outdoors can inspire a writer.
“My goal with this is that it should get poets who maybe don’t always go outside in nature and enjoy the things that inspire poetry as much as they should. And so my hope is that this is a way to get poets back into nature, but also people who go into nature that don’t really seek out reading poetry to go and enjoy poems as well. Hopefully it’s a way to get families to do it together, too,” Burns said.
Even if the poetry path was intended to be temporary, both Burns and the park keepers are fond enough of it that they’re hoping to find a way to make it permanent. No matter how long it stands, however, it will represent a deep connection between poetry and nature that is unlike anything else in the state.